Designated Daughters

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Authors: Margaret Maron
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we’re about to go arrest the guy.”
    “Great,” said Dwight. “That was quick.”
    Tub Greene was the newest member of the detective squad and he was shaping into a competent investigator “real fast for a fat little white boy,” according to Ray, who was mentoring him.
    “Mayleen left you these,” he said, handing Dwight a packet of DVDs. Richards no longer worked weekends as a regular thing, but Ray said she’d spent the morning sequencing the various pictures and videos my family had provided and she had made several copies before leaving thirty minutes ago. “I’m not sure how much longer we’re gonna have her.”
    “What do you mean?” Dwight asked.
    “Well, you know how she likes to be outside and now that she and Mike are married? I get the feeling she might want to work with him. Landscaping.” He shrugged. “We maybe ought to take a look at the kids graduating in criminal justice out at Colleton Community this spring.”
    “Hope to hell you’re wrong,” Dwight said glumly.
    “Yeah, me too.” Ray slipped on a brown poplin jacket and holstered his gun.
    As he headed out to meet Deputy Tub Greene, he held the door open for Sally. Before he could ask who she was there to see, Sally spotted us and waved extravagantly.
    “Hey, Dwight! Deb’rah! Y’all been waiting long?” She pushed past Ray McLamb, who stood with his mouth agape.
    Whereas her last two wigs had been short, today’s was a mass of long blonde ringlets that fell below her thin shoulders to spring out in every direction and bob up and down across her forehead like wire coils. She wore skintight black jeans and a fringed black leather vest over a flesh-colored top that fit so snugly she might as well have been nude under the vest. Nails and lipstick were also black.
    Sally’s idea of mourning?
    “Jay-Jay stayed with us last night,” she said when we were seated inside Dwight’s office, “but he had to go home to Raleigh to get his dog. He’ll be back tonight, though.”
    “Us” would be her and her husband, Buzz Crenshaw, who owns Crenshaw’s Lake, an RV campground that does a thriving business thanks to the interstate highway that skirts the lake. We’re about halfway between New York and Florida and a lot of vacationers seem to find Crenshaw’s a convenient and picturesque stopping point. In his way, Buzz is as colorful as Sally—his nickname comes from his reckless handling of speedboats out on the lake—and both seem popular with their customers.
    Dwight handed her a couple of the DVDs Mayleen had made. “Mr. Kezzie and Miss Sister are coming over to our house tomorrow to watch with us. Why don’t y’all come, too? Around two o’clock?”
    “That’ll work for Jay-Jay and me, but Buzz can’t come. He’s giving a waterskiing class then.”
    “Still a little chilly for that, isn’t it?” Dwight asked.
    “Oh, you know Buzz. He’s well insulated and we’ve got wet suits if someone wants them.”
    Like Haywood, Buzz must weigh close to two-seventy, so yes, he’s very well insulated. I spent a moment trying to imagine him on water skis in a Speedo and then I spent another few minutes trying to get that image out of my head.
    “Now about the Daughters,” Sally began, but I stopped her because Dwight had suddenly become absorbed by something on his computer screen.
    “We’ll be up in my office if you finish first,” I said and warned him that I’d be ready to go in a half hour.
    He gave me a distracted nod. “It’s Baltimore,” he murmured.
    “Thirty minutes,” I said again.
      
    “Let’s go to the old courtroom,” Sally said when we reached the elevator. “More room.”
    More room?
    When the doors slid open on the second floor, I saw why. It was the same group who had been in my courtroom earlier. The elderly woman who had looked around in bright-eyed interest was now asleep in a wheelchair, her small white head drooped onto her chest. The old man who had occupied it yesterday was seated on a

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